TIMELY COINCIDENCE

In last week’s post I mentioned “The Tree.” And since I’ve already written about it, I decided not to go any further into the story or to show any images related to it. Well, given what happened afterwards, I might as well do it now. In that story, with our first trip to the Portland Japanese Garden, we “discovered” what can only be described as possibly the most magnificent Japanese maple you will ever find. And Ann found the most incredible view from which to photograph it. Her image was so good, I decided to give my hand a try, knowing that the 35mm equivalent 23mm lens on my x100 wasn’t as wide as the lens Ann was using, so my image would necessarily be somewhat different. Here is the image I made.

And if you go on Google Images and search on Portland Japanese Garden, you’ll find a dozen or so images of this tree from pretty much the same viewpoint.  Scan through photography websites and articles, and you’ll see this image (well, not mine) time and time again, often simply as an example to make some other point.  The Tree lends itself to some incredible images.  

So guess what happened last week, after I’d written my story and uploaded it, but before I had the post go live (i.e, Ann had no idea I’d mentioned it)?  While I was cooking dinner Ann said, “Hey, Dan, it’s the Tree!”  A screen shot of what she was looking at on her iPad is below.

Same tree, wider angle and the “full image” of the tree as opposed to the “abstract branches” approach that mine (and many others) took.  Refer to “the tree” in the Portland Japanese Gardens and folks who visit there often know what you’re talking about.

Of course, we didn’t know that the tree was “The Tree” at the time we made our images, so you can’t accuse us of copying anybody else’s work.  But I guess you can say that we’re as susceptible to the photographing the obvious, yet incredibly stunning, subject that  is appealing to everyone else.  So we’re not “original”.  At least we’re not copy cats.  

And in case you were wondering, this was the image I first took while Ann was making her image. 

I was stunned with the difference between the coloration the cool, shaded light gave this image versus the reflected warm light the photograph from the underside had. It’s hard to believe that the images were made minutes apart.